A safe harbour.
Audiences for the Elbphilharmonie and visitors to the HafenCity district who arrive via the port’s ferry service can reach Kaiserkai and the concert hall in just a few paces. To this end, a jetty has been moored as a floating pontoon in Grasbrookhafen in the River Elbe.
The pontoon was manufactured entirely of reinforced concrete in a dry dock in Kiel. Its maiden voyage brought it into the Elbe through the Kiel Canal. After surviving this baptism of fire, it is now performing its job in the comparatively calm waters of the Port of Hamburg. With a displacement of 3 metres it also serves at the same time as a breakwater for the harbour basin behind it. Its length of 60 metres makes it one of the longest of its kind.
Moveably bedded onto the pontoon is the architecturally designed and technically challenging tubular steel lattice-frame bridge with a bow-shaped curved top chord. It is long enough to ensure safe access in all weather and tide related water levels. On the land side, the bridge is bedded onto a newly-erected pier deck.
So you can be sure of a safe harbour here, whatever the wind and weather!
© Karsten Buchholz, Andrzej Otrebski (CC BY-SA 4.0), BIN, BIN, BIN, BIN, BIN, BIN
